


Removing Language Barriers

by sanctum_c



Series: Cloti Week 2017 [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Edge (Compilation of FFVII), F/M, Kissing, Language, Language Barrier, Post-Canon, Seventh Heaven (Compilation of FFVII), Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c
Summary: Tifa decides to rewrite the Seventh Heaven menus.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: Cloti Week 2017 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023682
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	Removing Language Barriers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'Letters'

Tifa had been considering the project for the last month or so. Additional chalkboards were easy to obtain, but finding the time to get started was much trickier. In the end the opportunity came on the spur of the moment; a quieter than usual afternoon in the Seventh Heaven. No customers and no restocks to worry about. The weather was likely a factor since the heavy rain kept Marlene and Denzel inside and their regular customers elsewhere. Tifa seized the opportunity to turn her idea into a family activity. A shame Cloud wasn't here too. She could wait, but- "Okay kids. We're going to re-write the menus."

"Re-write?" Marlene stared at her aghast. "You're changing the food?"

Tifa smiled and shook her head. "Not like that." Marlene relaxed. "I thought we could write them out again in different languages."

Denzel frowned. "I thought everyone spoke the same?"

"Shinra used to like to try and enforce that. That was... It was a bad time. People like their heritage, and with Shinra gone, it feels a good time to embrace the possibility of expressing it again." A pat on Denzel's shoulder and she retrieved the chalkboards, heaving them from the back of the bar and down onto one of the tables. "As more and more people come to Edge, I think it would be nice if they could read our menus easily. Most people can speak standard, but I'm not convinced everyone can read it."

"Tifa? I can't write anything but standard?" Marlene viewed the boards with apprehension.

"Not a problem." Tifa retrieved the five sheets of paper she had been making notes on. "Here are all the menus written out in each language. All you have to do is copy them exactly as I wrote them. The original menu will stay as it is." She held up the first sheet. "Who wants to do Wutainess?"

Marlene volunteered to write out the menu for Yuffie's homeland; Denzel took the Corel version. He watched Marlene as she started copying the characters. "Feels like you should do this one."

"But I don't even remember being there," Marlene replied, focused on her own writing. Unsure how to answer that, Denzel got on with his board. The two kids wrote neatly and accurately as Tifa wrote out her own board. She could fix any mistakes later, but so far everything the kids had done was fine to go straight on display. Marlene peered at the different, flowing script Tifa wrote in once she hit the mid-way mark of the Wutai menu. "What's that one?"

"A surprise," she told Marlene. "You'll find out later." Not a satisfying answer, but there was someone else she wanted to see her efforts first. Denzel finished the Corel menu a little ahead of Marlene's Wutainese version. Three menus down; Tifa helped with both the Mideel and Northern variants. "I think I would have included a Cetran version; if Aeris had been able to teach me," Tifa murmured.

"But could anyone even read that?" Denzel paused in his work to look at her.

"Probably not." Tifa sighed and smiled back at him. "But I try to include her if I can." Rewriting the boards was not as arduous a task as she expected - especially with the three of them working together. No reason to delay putting them on display. They took down the various framed photos on the Seventh Heaven's walls; she would worry about where they would wind up later. A short piece of work with a power-drill and the new as inclusive as possible menus were up on the wall. "Anything we missed, we'll add later."

"You should write Seventh Heaven on all of them too!" Marlene bounced on her heels. "Can we do that too?"

"Shouldn't we leave something for Cloud?" Tifa smiled.

Marlene stopped bouncing. "Yeah. I guess," she said with an exaggerated sigh.

"Tell you what; you can help me write out the words for him." Marlene grinned. The afternoon wiled away as Marlene called out questions about letter arrangement and glyph use, Tifa answering as best she could. Marlene became frustrated on a semi-regular basis with conditional shifts of glyphs, pronunciations and meanings, but with Tifa's help at last rendered five versions of the bar's name. Including one very special one that Tifa continued to refuse to discuss any further. The weather improved as the day wore on and the bar became busier.

Cloud arrived home not long after the last few stragglers left and Tifa had little left to do with clean up. Good. He was much better at keeping regular hours these days and gave little indication he was about to rush off on his own again. Life was getting easier post-Meteor. "Hey."

"Hi Cloud." Tifa set down the glass she was drying as he approached.

Cloud pulled his goggles off, only noticing the menus when he was half-way across the bar. "You re-did the menu?" He blinked and wandered closer to the chalkboards.

"Kinda." She leant on the bar.

He smiled. "Oh. You translated them."

"Yep. So no matter who our customer is they can see what food we have."

Cloud nodded. "I like it." He studied each menu in turn and stopped at the last. Her chalkboard. He stared at it for a long moment. "Is that- It is. That's Nibel." He glanced at her and she nodded. "Wow. I haven't seen that since-" He hurried over to the bar. "Tifa that's amazing."

"I know there weren't many survivors, but-" Tifa took his hand as he leant against the bar.

"-but anyone else who came from our town originally can read it." He looked at the board one more time and then back to her. "I love it."

"Best tribute to our home town - our real home town - I could think of," she murmured.

"You really are amazing." Cloud kissed her, a quick peck on the lips that she ensured went on longer than he might have intended. She stroked her hand through his blonde spikes as the kiss continued. Cloud panted as he pulled away a moment later. "Need a hand with anything down here?"

"Bar's sorted." Tifa grinned at him. "We can head up to bed whenever you're ready..."


End file.
